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The Protestant Reformation: It's Impact Today

Uploaded by jtj4863 on Apr 11, 2006

Julius Taylor

5/25/05

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation: Its Impact Today

“Whatever I do will be done, not by the prudence of men, but by the counsel of God. If the work be of God, who shall stop it? if it be not, who can forward it? Not my will, nor theirs, nor ours; but Thy will, O Holy Father, which art in heaven.” Martin Luther (What Started the…)

The Protestant Reformation was a movement that began in the 16th century as a series of events to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but ended in division and the establishment of new institutions which included Lutheranism, Reformed churches, and Anabaptists. But how did this all begin? Why did people feel the Catholic Church needed to be reformed, and how has it impacted society today? Throughout this paper I will answer all of these questions.

During the earlier part of the 16th century, the Roman Church had made merchandise of the grace of God. Indulgences for sin were publicly offered for sale by Johann Tetzel1, who had the authority to do so from the Pope. Tetzel declared, ”by virtue of his certificates of pardon all the sins which the purchaser should afterward desire to commit would be forgiven, and that not even repentance is necessary.”(What Started the…)

The doctrine of indulgences had been opposed by men of learning and godliness in the Roman Church. There were many who had no faith in pretensions so contrary to both reason and revelation. But no man dared to go against the authority of the Pope, even though their minds were becoming disturbed and uneasy with the ideas of these indulgences. Many people prayed that God would work through some instrument in order to purify His church. (What Started the…)

These allegations enraged a man by the name of Martin Luther2. He felt that the Roman Catholic Church was corrupt and that it should be reformed. Luther also argued that a reformation was needed to accomplish other things. In particular, reformation was required with regards to: the language that the Bible was produced in, since most people could not read Latin; the selling of forgiveness, this was considered to be immoral by Luther but had been standard practice by some monks and priests for years. The ideas behind the Protestant Reformation were simple: The Church should be changed, or reformed, so that it was...